Golden
by Insomniac Owl
Summary: Suffocating darkness, empty. He’s already drowning, and there is nothing he can do.


**Golden**

_By Insomniac Owl_

-

Steam rises, rain falls, and all he can feel is Orochimaru's gaze on his back.

It's unnerving, the way he can stare without blinking for quite so long _(and when he does, his eyes have a way of slipping shut and making it look like he never really did at all). _

He can feel the hairs on the back of his neck rising under those golden eyes, but he pushes the feeling away and sips his tea. It's jasmine, hard to get where they are. Sasuke doesn't know how he gets it, but he doesn't care.

He just wants him to stop _staring_.

He thinks Orochimaru is smirking now, though he doesn't turn to see. He has a way of knowing what Sasuke is thinking and feeling _(always)_, and when it amuses him he smirks, or chuckles. When that happens, Sasuke has to fight to keep his emotions from overflowing and falling into Orochimaru's hands, because that's just what the other man wants.

He takes a deep breath and stands, moving to the faucet at the sink. His fingers find the knob and he twists it to the right, the pipes gurgling as they start. Water gushes out, and he gently rinses his cup in the warm water. Even after the porcelain is clean _(spotless and without sin)_ he keeps the cup under the flow, staring distantly as he lets the water run, not over the cup, but over his hands.

The warmth of the water is the closest thing he gets to the sun in this place. All the lairs are the same, dark and underground - no light, no life. He is rarely allowed out, so he is forced to substitute steaming-hot water for the warmth of the sun.

Living in this pit has a strange effect on him. It makes him feel trapped, to look in any direction and see walls without windows, floors without color, rooms without life. That's what this place feels like, as if it is completely devoid of life. True, there are people, but they seem dead too, as if the place has absorbed them altogether. And when they are gone, there is always the pressing walls and stale air around him.

Orochimaru is the worst.

He is the center of this absence, this _(living)_ death and jailed sensation. Sasuke is trapped here, a prisoner of his own making.

"Sasuke…" Orochimaru's purr comes close to his ear, and he starts, turning off the water as if he meant to do so all along. "You want too much."

"What does that mean?" Sasuke snaps disgustedly, though he doesn't dare to move. He can feel the snake-sannin at his back, and in his peripheral vision he can just make out a single gold earring, flashing in light he didn't know existed. It looks like real light too.

"Things aren't perfect…"

With a sickening lurch Sasuke realizes he's been read. "I don't know what you're talking about," he replies, his voice harsh and cold.

Orochimaru chuckles in an abiding manner, leaning reaching around Sasuke to set his cup on the counter. Steam is still rising in tight curls that unfurl and disintegrate; he can feel the warmth from where he stands. One hand clenches into a bleach-knuckled fist, and his lips press into a thin line, eyes darkening dangerously.

"You _want_," the other hissed, and Sasuke knows the smirk had left. "You are greedy and selfish; you can't keep your eyes off the pretty things you desire; you can't turn down an offer no matter what the terms entail."

A pause, and Sasuke imagines that one of the smoke curls has unfurled into a snake, rearing and doubling back until it tears itself in two.

"That's why you're here. That's why you accepted…" Sasuke can feel the older man's breath on his neck, and he can feel his muscles stiffening, so opposed to the almost-contact. "You chose this Sasuke - you came to me. Don't forget that. Because now that you've made your decision, you cannot back out."

"I know." His words are still harsh and biting. Again the chuckle.

"I know you do. But you _regret_, don't you Sasuke?" Orochimaru's voice is almost teasing, but Sasuke refuses to fall for the trap. He gathers a breath and stiffly turns, refusing to meet the snake-sannin's gaze.

"I came to you of my own choice. I regret nothing."

"Or course." His voice is just a bit too calm, but Sasuke slips out of the room without so much as a backward glance, into darkness and jail and lifelessness. Into the pressing absence and away from the core of it all.

In the hallway out of view of those golden eyes, Sasuke stops and leans against the wall, letting his body relax. There are no lanterns, no candles, no sources of light in this stretch of hallway, and he sighs heavily, allowing his face to fall into his hands, letting them slide up and through his hair until they are free again.

This pit is absorbing him too; he can feel it. Every morning he's a little less _there_, a little less Sasuke...

He has to escape.

Golden eyes glimmer cat-like in the darkness, and Sasuke starts, not realizing Orochimaru was coming until he was less than three feet away. He senses the smirk on the snake-sannin's lips and firmly presses his own together, stepping aside to let him pass, but Orochimaru pauses, once again close _(in a way that makes him feel dirty and naked)_, and he speaks so quietly he might have only imagined it.

"You aren't thinking of leaving now, are you Sasuke-kun?"

And the look in those golden eyes drains any hope he had.

He can already feel the pervading emptiness, seeping inside _him_ too as Orochimaru brushes by, _(almost but not quite)_ touching as he passes. A brief sensation, a whisper on his arm, and he's falling away into darkness.

Only to find he's already there, chin-deep and drowning.

**finis**


End file.
